It has been postulated that lipoprotein lipase, an enzyme important in the uptake of fatty acids into tissues, is bound to the vascular endothelial cell surface and that this binding occurs through attachment to heparinlike glycosaminoglycans. Furthermore, it is thought that heparin releases the enzyme from its attachment to the endothelium into the circulation. These hypotheses have never been tested directly in cell systems in vitro. In the present study we have directly evaluated the interaction of lipoprotein lipase, purified from bovine skim milk with monolayer cultures of endothelial cells, isolated from bovine pulmonary artery. Endothelial cells in primary culture had no intrinsic lipoprotein lipase activity but were able to bind lipoprotein lipase quantitatively. The binding reached equilibrium and was saturable at 0.24 nmol of lipoprotein lipase/mg of cell protein. The concentration of lipoprotein lipase at half-maximal binding was 0.52 microM. Bound lipoprotein lipase could be detached from cultured cells by increasing concentrations of heparin, and at and above 0.6 microgram/ml of heparin, 90% of the cell-bound lipoprotein lipase activity was released. Heparan sulfate and dermatan sulfate released the enzyme to a lesser extent and chondroitin sulfate caused little, if any, release of lipoprotein lipase. The release of lipoprotein lipase with heparin was not associated with a release of [3S]glycosaminoglycans from 35S-prelabeled cells. Reductions of lipoprotein lipase binding to endothelial cells and of cell surface-associated [3S]glycosaminoglycans in 35S-prelabeled cells occurred in parallel both when cells were pretreated with crude Flavobacterium heparinum enzyme before lipoprotein lipase binding and when cells were treated with this enzyme after lipoprotein lipase binding. The removal of heparan sulfate from the cell surface by purified heparinase totally inhibited the binding of lipoprotein lipase by endothelial cells, but the removal of chondroitin sulfate by chondroitin ABC lyase had no effect on this binding. These results provide direct evidence for lipoprotein lipase attachment to endothelial cells through heparan sulfate on the cell surface, and provide evidence for the release of lipoprotein lipase by heparin through a detachment from this binding site.